Significant progress has been made in improving health in the poorest countries, narrowing the gap between nations with the best and worst health status in the past two decades, World Health Organisation (WHO) 2013 statistics indicate.

Despite substantial improvements in recent years, 44 million women in the developing world, as well as their newborns, lacked facility-based delivery care in 2012, a new study by the Guttmacher Institute has revealed.